Journal article
Nostos in three moves or five stages: a story pattern in early Greek epic
- Abstract:
- This article suggests that nostos stories in early Greek epic are typically structured around a five stage pattern, in which (1) a divine interaction motivates (2) a journey to (3) a peripheral or preliminary destination before (4) another journey to (5) a central or final destination. This can also be simplified into three moves ([I] the divine episode, [II] a preliminary destination, [III] the final destination). The argument seeks to trace this pattern in the Odyssey, to demonstrate that it is central to the version of Heracles’s nostos from Troy as told in several places in the Iliad, and to suggest that it may also be seen at work as the basic structural principle in the Nostoi. The article closes by suggesting that, in keeping with recent work on the idea of nostos as any successful arrival after a dangerous journey, this pattern may also be of much wider application in Archaic epos.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 377.8KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1163/24688487-00901003
Authors
- Publisher:
- Brill Academic Publishers
- Journal:
- Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Pages:
- 1-42
- Publication date:
- 2025-08-19
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-07-20
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2468-8487
- ISSN:
-
2405-450X
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
2284745
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2284745
- Deposit date:
-
2025-08-29
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Adrian Kelly
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © Adrian Kelly, 2025. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record